


I Ain't Looking for Easy

by dancinbutterfly



Series: Justified [9]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: 1990s, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Anal Fingering, Awkward First Times, Billy is a hustler and squatter, Billy references movies all the time even inside his own head, Boundaries, Boys Kissing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dirty Talk, First Fight, First Time, Goody is an Army Ranger, Idiots in Love, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kissing, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Masturbation, Naked Cuddling, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Reconciliation, References to Billy's in-fic history and all that implies, Right now, Squatting, Touching, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 21:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12491528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: Goody and Billy don't have sex the first time after the first their first fight. They make love. It's intensely connected but not at all the same.





	I Ain't Looking for Easy

**Author's Note:**

> 80% Decoy_ocelot's fault. 20% Font's fault. 200% done with these hot messes.

> **Bartender:** Wouldn't it be easier just to buy a new hat?  
>  **Raylan Givens:** Probably, but I ain't looking for easy.
> 
> \- Justified 1.09 _Hatless_

* * *

**Winter - Sometime in the Mid-90s**

* * *

_They’ve been kissing for hours. Goody likes to do that, just kiss, He puts his hands on Billy when they do it - on his neck, in his hair, rubbing over his back and shoulders, stroking over his cheek and jawbones, clutching at his hips. Billy is good with his hands but he tends to keep them locked around Goody’s neck, anchoring him because kissing Goody is a lot._

_Hands on his skin are an exit cue for his brain. Not just any exit either, but an exit pursued by a fucking bear. Yet when his lips touch Goody’s, he finds himself so inside his body that the sensory input is overwhelming. Hell, it’s fucking terrifying._

_Billy loves kissing Goody, fear and all. Every single time they’ve fallen into each other, it’s like the best scene of every romantic movie Billy’s ever seen, a desperate, hot, sweet meeting that feels like it should be choreographed and lit by something better than the shitty camping lantern tucked in the corner of the squat on top of the ancient, ugly artichoke-green fridge._

_There’s a triumphant feeling to it, too. A part of him feels like shouting, “Fuck you, I’m getting my normal American adolescence anyway, you bastards!” into the sky each time he and Goody degenerate into sloppy making out. They’re grown-ass men and they haven’t even come together but Billy’s watched so many couples on TV pull each other into embraces like these over the years and longed for it, ached to know if it felt as different from a trick as it looked. Now he gets to_ have _and the satisfaction of having is almost as good as the necking itself._

_Almost._

_Vindication doesn’t have shit on the way Goody tastes or sounds or feels. His mouth is too hot and a little too wet and his body so strong with a core of solid steel covered by firm muscle and soft skin and clothes. It’s like being high but better because this he picked, this he wants._

_“Goody, Jesus, please.”_

_“Yes,” Goody moans into his mouth. He pulls back to smile at him in the halogen light cast by the lantern.“Whatever you want, mon vainqueur.”_

_Billy uses the distance to tug his shirt off over his head, exposing his skin in a request he can't manage with words. Goody grins appreciatively at the sight of him and they're are kissing again an instant later, even better for all the skin._

_Goody skims his hands down his back then back up and Billy wraps his ankles around Goody’s calves, the fabric of their jeans scraping together in the silence. Goody moans and grinds against him, so hard. He’s so hard. Billy rolls his hips back up in appreciation and Goody breaks the kiss to pant against his cheek._

_“You’re killing me, cher,” Goody gasps. His voice is raw with want and his eyes are dark with hunger but he’s still soft, soft in that way that has been fucking Billy up since the night they met._

_“Fuck me,” he offers because God, Billy wants him any way he can have him. “Goody, you can fuck me, if you want.”_

_“Mmm.” Goody hums, low and satisfied, like he’s tasted something delicious. “That sounds good but I’ve been waiting to have you inside me since the first time you touched me.”_

_He kisses Billy’s cheek as he speaks, lips soft and warm against his skin. Billy doesn’t mean to jerk back from the touch but he can’t help it. Goody just sounds fucking crazy._

_“Goody, come on.”_

_“What?” Goody’s grinning at him. “It’s not an army thing is it? Because let me tell you,” he grinds against Billy’s thigh in a little sideways roll that works with their prone position on the air mattress he uses as a bed. “The porn tropes are pretty far off base but there definitely are some serious bottom bitches in This Man’s Army.” He winks then grabs Billy’s hand and puts it firmly on his ass. “But I didn’t tell you that, if you know what I mean.”_

_“But…” Billy knows he’s kidding, playing with the DADT terminology in that way he likes to do when he’s not actually with other military personnel. He loves that about Goody, that he can take the limitations forced on him by other people and turn them into jokes. It reminds him not to be so damn bitter._

_But seriously? Who is he fucking kidding here?_

_“I said I would do it.”_

_“Cher,” Goody chuckles, “You’re making me feel like I’m eight years old, fighting with my cousin for the top bunk on family vacation. We can at least be civilized enough to rock-paper-scissors for it.” He pulls Billy’s fingers between them and kisses the tips. “We’re adults after all.”_

_“You keep doing this,” Billy snaps, suddenly angry. He yanks his hand away and tucks it behind his back. “Stop it, Goodnight. Jesus.”_

_“Billy.”_

_Billy sits up because he can’t do this lying down. He stays close because he wants Goody and he’s never wanted anyone before but he’s conducted too much of his life lying down, dammit. “It’s bad enough that you’re always being—” He waves a hand to try and encompass everything that Goody is and does. “I mean fuck. Movies, camping, you even pay for the fucking food I eat. I can deal with that because you make me feel like I’m real but you don’t have to do this too. Please, Goody.”_

_Billy feels terrified as he makes himself look down into Goody’s face but he does it anyway because he needs this to connect. He needs Goody to understand that that he’s not rejecting Goody and everything he’s given him by simply being around (not to mention the rest of it) by doing this. He’s not. All Billy is trying to do is some of the the giving for once. That’s how relationships are supposed to work right?_

_He reaches out and touches Goody’s face, his five-o’clock shadow rough under his fingertips. “I don’t mind. Let me do this for you, okay?”_

_Goody stares at him for a long time without speaking (which, all by itself, is unsettling) then shakes his head and Billy wants to throw something at the wall just to hear it break. Fucking white boys. They either take everything without permission or won’t take anything at all._

_“Goody—“_

_“I know who you are, Billy,” Goody says, cutting him off. “And I know what it sounds like when you want me. So if you think I’m going to miss the fact that you’re talking about us fucking like it’s work or some burden, you’re out of your ever-loving mind.” He covers Billy’s fingers on his face with his palm. “I don’t want anything we do to be a burden to you, cher, especially not when I am more than happy without it.”_

_“Bullshit.” No man doesn’t want his dick wet. None. Billy has never had anyone turn him down besides Goody, not in more than a decade._

_“What part of ‘I want you in my ass’ did you not get?” Goody asks, tilting even further into his touch, pitching his voice low and hungry._

_It fucking pisses Billy off. “All of it. Come on Goody. Just—”_

_“Just what? Be a top? Be a man? I’m not sure what you want me to just do but I was fucking long before we met, plenty long enough to figure out what I like.” Then he pulls away and Billy’s fingertips miss his stubble. “I’m not going to put it on a billboard or anything, I’m not stupid, but I am happier being filled than filling, always have been. I didn’t think you of all people would give me a hard time for that.”_

_Billy feels like he’s been hit in the gut, breathless and hurt. “What?”_

_“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Goody snaps, curling in on himself. “I like what I like.”_

_“But_ how _?” Billy can’t keep the dismay out of his voice. His carefully constructed masks are useless with Goody, especially his poker face and this doesn’t make sense. “How can you like it? It’s—“_

_He stops abruptly because he can’t talk about what getting fucked is like when he is like this, angry and exposed with Goody. How it feels, what it makes him do, is too raw for this moment. Maybe if they were in a better place, if things were soft and quiet like they are sometimes when they’re curled together he could say it but they’re not. They’re sharp edges and hard walls right now so Billy can’t fucking say it and he can’t understand._

_He knows that it’s possible to come from being fucked. He had a few “clients” when he was with_ them _who got off on making him “like” it, especially when he was a gangly teenager whose body refused to obey his brain but that was different. That didn’t count. That was just one more invasion._

_He drags a hand through his hair and shakes his head. “I just don’t get how anyone could like the way it makes them feel,” he offers because that’s the best he can do. He doesn’t judge Goody. He doesn’t fucking understand._

_Goody’s eyes have been a heavy weight on him this whole terrible time but they soften suddenly. “Oh,” he practically croons. “Oh Billy, it’s not the same. Hey.”_

_He moves forward, climbing into Billy’s lap, all wiry muscle and long, powerful limbs. Wrapping his arms around Goody’s waist to hold him steady has become an unconscious gesture over the past few months, one that soothes them both._

_“It’s different for me, so different,” Goody promises, pressing kisses to Billy’s face as he speaks. “Let me show you.”_

_“You-“ Billy tries to protest but Goody’s lips and tongue stop him cold and then hot like a blue flame._

_“Shhh, cher, I know.” Goody murmurs as he pulls back half a minute later to rests their foreheads together. “But I want to. I want to so fucking badly.” He rubs the tip of his nose against first one side of Billy’s, then the other before kissing him, a few little sipping kisses, his jaw cradled in his broad palm._

_The silky words and gentle treatment make Billy’s body go limp in a rush of of weakness and fragility. Physical vulnerability like this is a sensation he’s experienced often in his life, but for once there’s no fear or blankness here. These are only some of the typical feelings he experiences from being close to Goody - a sense of being understood and appreciated, some level of satisfaction, a feeling of safety, and now, so fucking turned on that he’s afraid his brain is going to leak out his ears. That doesn't keep the old memories from nipping close on his heels._

_He trusts Goody. He does he just isn’t sure he wants to risk losing this after they’ve managed to claw back from that mess that, now that he’s thinking about it, was their first fight._

_They got through their first fight and they’re still wrapped up in each other. He gives Goody a smile he hopes comes off as charming instead of as nervous and shaken as the realization has made him. “This is nice, though.”_

_Goody gives him a determined look that Billy knows means he is in trouble before saying firmly, “Let me show you, Billy Rocks.” Then he leans forward so he can nip Billy’s earlobe and purr, “With fingers inside me, I’ll blow for you like a ten-ton payload, you just have to let me.”_

_That blue flame pours from where Goody bit him down through his neck down his back, through his gut to pool to in his cock. “I…Goody,” he croaks. His throat is so dry he actually has to laugh before he can speak. “Do whatever you wanna do.”_

_Beaming, Goody kisses him again, quick and dry before flinging himself on his back and ferreting around on the ground beside the bed for his duffel with one hand. His other hand, his less dominant one Billy notes detachedly, is undoing his jeans which is actually pretty impressive. He figures ambidexterity must be a skill he picked up in Ranger School because his left hand has gotten Goody out of those jeans and his boxers by the time he finally fishes lube out of his bag, without ever breaking eye contact._

_Billy feels hypnotized as Goody is suddenly there, naked from the waist down. Goody’s New Orleans Saints shirt is still on. The worn black fabric is hiding his stomach and chest from Billy’s eyes while his everything from just the trail of hair beginning just below his navel to the bottom of his long hairy legs are on display, especially his groin._

_It’s one thing to know, academically, that Goody is turned on but it’s something else to see the evidence in the flesh. He thought he wouldn’t care. Why would he? Billy’s seen more dick than he’s had hot dinners but it’s normal enough, flushed red with blood, hard, cut, decent girth but not too thick and maybe six and a half, seven inches long (Billy can’t really be sure until he has him in hand) with lightly furred balls hanging soft and vulnerable between his thighs. Nothing strange or unfamiliar there. Yet looking at Goody is different than anything else, overwhelming in a way that makes him feel hot instead of cold, breathless instead of strangled. Funny how that first night he was so ready to get this cock in his mouth without a giving second thought and now, finally confronted with the reality, he finds himself so profoundly affected._

_“Oh.”_

_“Good oh?”_

_“Uh, yeah.” Billy swallows around the fire in his throat. “Did you leave that on on purpose?”_

_Goody laughs and his cheeks flush red like his cock. It is a color he will never be able to forget. “No, I got a bit ahead of myself. Thank you for the reminder.” Goody says as he leans back out._

_Ab muscles ripple as the shirt goes flying over the room to land in the space between Billy’s mini-fridges. All that skin and soft hair is begging him to touch but he can’t actually move. He’s beautiful, Billy thinks as his gaze traces over every line of Goody’s body, sculpted by hard work and battle, like open palms._

_“I like that,” Goody says, stretching out on the bed like a cat settling for a nap. He’s so slow and languid now that Billy could pour him over waffles. “Your eyes on me. I want you to memorize this, Billy, every inch of me, like this, because it’s for you. You make me feel so good.” He pours lube from his little bottle onto the fingers of his right hand before dropping it by his hip. He wraps his fist around his cock, holding it firm and steady in his grip, while his left hand drops to his right arm. He smoothes up and down from shoulder to elbow as he keeps talking, almost cuddling himself. “When you’re with me I feel warm and cozy and goddamn content, at fucking rest, but the energy’s still here.” He finally begins to move his fist, slow and smoothing. “You make me still, light me up, but I stay desperate and so goddamn hard, so empty aching for you.” He picks up the bottle again to reslick his right hand and when those wet fingers return, they slide between his thighs. His left hand wraps around his smooth cock, using the drool of precome to ease the way. “That’s what you do to me, mon vainqueur. I’m absorbed with you, Billy Rocks._

_Fuck. Fuck. Billy wants to cry because it’s everything he’s wanted to express but couldn’t even think. Now that Goody’s saying it, the whole is so much bigger than the sum of the parts because all together he can see that it means that Goody loves him and that- fuck. Fuck. He loves Goody back. He didn’t think he could love and be loved anyone but Yeon-mi and Jin-sung (and in that distant way his parents) but this is different._

_Loving Goody, being loved by him, came from a different source than the family connection that led their parents to risk their well-being and lives to give him a better life or he and Yeon-mi to risk death for each other, to sacrifice their innocence and bodies for each other. This is a love born out of joy, out of appreciation and trust and choice and it makes Billy feel free. He doesn’t think anyone has ever loved him this way before. It feels safe in a way that makes him want to build something new instead of spending all his time destroying the past to protect the present. Love that makes him hope, maybe?_

_“It’s the same for me,” Billy manages, his tongue stumbling over the sounds of English for the first time in 10 years. “That’s what it’s like for me too. Exactly like that.”_

_Goody smiles and releases his cock to hold out his hand. “C’mere.” When Billy takes it, Goody tugs him down to his side. “Better,” he huffs as he resettles on his back. His smile turns wicked and he grabs Billy’s right hand. He plants it on his inner thigh, high up, so high Billy’s fingers curve down into the tight space in between the start of Goody’s cheeks._

_“Goody.”_

_“You said you’d let me show you,” Goody practically whimpers. “I want to show you how it can be for us, together.”_

_Billy nods with his face pressed into Goody’s shoulder. “Because it’s different.”_

_“Mhm. Watch, cher.” He can feel Goody go still beneath him, waiting. Billy takes a few slow, deep breathes before inching down to settle head to tail, on his side, with his head resting just above Goody’s knobbly knee. The position gives him a strange perspective, sideways and intimate._

_Goody’s cleaner hand gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze. Billy welcomes the warm weight and firm connection to reality. “Comfortable?” Billy nods. “Watching?” Billy nods again Goody laughs. “Excellent.”_

_The sight of Goody’s index finger sliding into his hole from this view, so graphic and real, steals his air. Billy can’t tell if it’s good or bad._

_Besides their breathing the room is silent but his body is rocking like a boat on steady waves. Even though Goody’s back keeps arching and his legs keep tensing up as his finger works, somehow he’s never anything but pliant. His body gives over like an invitation to the intrusion in the stretch and give of his rim. Each thrust he gives out a soft little pants for breath. He wonders if this is what fingering always looks like, effortless and slippery, because fuck it doesn’t- it never- he’s never-_

_“That’s good?” He asks, breathless, a little choked. He hates that there are tears in his eyes again, twice in a day when it’s been years since he’d cried before._

_He gets a happy hum from Goody. “Fantastic. I like it like this.” He adds a second finger. He lifts his head high enough that Billy can see him smile “I have been accused on several occasions of being a size queen.”_

_Billy breathes hard at the sight of his twisting fingers. God, how does his skin stretch so easy like that? How does he say that like he’s proud?_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Oh yes, cher. I can’t wait until it’s you, opening me up, pushing inside. It’s going to be amazing, and it’s always good.” As if to punctuate this fact, his fingers do something, twisting, his wrist bending and he cries out, hips bucking against nothing. “Fuck, ah, fuck, Billy. Do you see?”_

_He’s starting to. He’s starting to see it every time Goody’s wrist and fingers flex and twist and his body spasms like the skin of a drum being struck. The sight and sound and the fucking sweaty musky smell of it all is beautiful and it’s making him burn with something that feels a lot like the desperation he remembers from those times when he was starving._

_That’s the unbearable part, that starving need for Goody to come like this, under his eyes from the inside out. The need is horrible because it finally makes those encounters make sense - the ones where what the person using him wanted was his orgasm from getting fingered or fucked. It had never made sense to him before, how anyone could want that from him, could get off on anything but the way it felt, but now he can understand. He can finally relate to the desire of the hands that have roamed over him for the last ten years. He doesn’t know if that makes it better or worse that the men who paid to fuck him had become more real to him instead staying hazy passing shadows of monsters or paper cut-outs of human beings who were just a means to an end. He’ll have to wait and see._

_He pushes his nose into Goody’s inner thigh. “God,” he says into his thigh, wet lips dragging over soft skin and softer hair. “God, Goody, God, you’re so beautiful.”_

_“I- ah, cher I’m so- fuck- close.” Goody gasps. “I’m so close. You feel-“_

_“I want you too,” Billy whispers, lips against pressed into that strong thigh. “I want you to come.”_

_As Billy watches, Goody pushes his third finger into himself with the other two, twisting his wrist. “For you. Billy, please. I want to-“ His other hand moves from Billy’s shoulder to his neck and the side of his jaw._

_Billy turns his head into his palm, nose and mouth brushing the calluses. “For us,” he says, his lips dragging over the creases that the movies call lifelines. “Do it for us, okay?” He moves and sucks Goody’s rough thumb in._

_Goody’s cry as he comes is wordless. The mattress moves beneath them as his body shakes and writhes with orgasm. His cock spills thick, white come onto that flat chest, landing in the dip of his navel and the grooves that outline the muscles of his stomach. Goody doesn’t stop fucking himself on his fingers even as he shoots, full and stretched even as his body twitches in aftershocks. Billy is mesmerized, transformed into a helpless thrall like Caligari’s somnambulist as he watches the vision of Goody’s pleasure unfolding beneath him, for him, with him._

_Billy kisses his thigh again, awed and at the edge himself. “So fucking beautiful.”_

_Trembling fingers find his hair and comb through the strands until they stand on end. He’s seen people pet cats in movies like this, Billy thinks, stunned. Goody’s hand petting him is lessa relaxing balm than it is another electrifying caress; heavy with affection that fans the fire of his lust faster than that same hand around his cock would have. “God, Goody.”_

_“You going to come too, cher?” Goody drawls. He pulls his fingers free, soft like his words and his breathing. His glistening hole spasms a few times and Billy wants to touch._

_“Yeah. I- Can I feel?”_

_“Fuck, yes, cher,” Goody sighs, dragging his fingernails across his scalp. “Do whatever you want.”_

_Billy chuckles to hear his own words shot back at him. He touches Goody tentatively, fingertips sliding against his slick entrance. His rim is hot and soft under the gentle pressure of his touch. Billy has to dig his teeth into his lip to keep from making a noise he wasn’t sure he could live with making._

_“Ah, ah” Goody gasps, his hips bucking sharply. “That’s, oh.” He exhales long and deep, pushing back against Billy’s finger, but not quite pushing inside. “Sensitive. Uhnh, Billy.”_

_He stops, pulling his fingers back a half an inch, breaking all contact. “Is that okay?”_

_Goody’s laughter is an exhausted, huffing sound. “Oh, darlin’ , more than. ’S divine.” His neatly kept nails drag across his scalp, making him shiver. “I just wanted to say your name. I like the way it feels good on my tongue.”_

_When Billy laughs, it’s a sharp tangled sound, sharp with dismay and the ever tightening arousal zipping through his body. “That is a fucking line.”_

_“True.” The hand on his head moves to stroke his cheek. “It is also fact. I bet other parts of you would feel good in my mouth too. Can I check?”_

_Billy chokes on a giggle even as he shifts in his jeans. “Oh my God.”_

_“I can’t tell if that’s a yes or a no. Care to buy another vowel?”_

_He thinks about it. He’s been blown a few times. It was a rare request but some guys did get off on giving. Billy wasn’t a fan and he didn’t want to go back down that mental road, wondering how things were in Goody’s head, how they were different and the same as what had happened to him in the past. He wanted to stay here, in this weird, upside-down, intimacy that seeps into his joints and unwinds him._

_“I think…” He closes his eyes against Goody’s reaction, “I think this is good for now.”_

_“Mm, it is,” Goody agrees._

_Surprise is not what Billy should be feeling. He’s known Goody for two months and he’s never been disappointed in what Billy’s had to offer, what he’s accepted. He’d still thought this would be different. Sex is supposed to be where people changed, that’s what he’s always heard._

_Then again where the hell has he heard that from? A lifetime of movies and complaining johns who were paying to fuck him - first as a scared boy and then as a half-starved young man. What the hell kind of source was that? Fairytales and monsters were supposed to be fables and metaphors, not cold truth._

_People probably weren’t supposed to change during sex. They were supposed to be the same person, or at least recognizable, all the time. That was why you picked them to be with. Goody being Goody in bed just like out at Floyd’s or on base or at a campsite or in a restaurant was the way it was meant to be._

_“Best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Billy admits, pushing up on an elbow as he opens his eyes. He wants to have a better view of Goody’s sharply drawn face when he does this. He’s readjusted himself in time to see him smile at that. It’s a beautiful view. His lips, his teeth, his whole mouth and the way his eyes brighten, making him shine in the terrible lighting._

_Goody doesn't move as Billy unzips his jeans and pulls his dick out. He's smiling, post-orgasmic puddle of a human being as he watches every move but he doesn't so much as twitch and that's its own kind of hot, it's own kind of miraculous._

_“Me too, I think,” Goody agrees. He raises an eyebrow in question and billy nods desperately. He doesn't know what he's agreeing to but he doesn't really care. Anything Goody does to him will be good. He can bank on that._

_What Goody does is reach out to where Billy has his hand on his own cock . He doesn’t try to break his grip but instead wraps his gun-callused fingers around his wrist. He squeezes once then his grip goes limp and heavy, a weight with no intention. A passenger._

_Billy feels like he’s going to choke on his own tongue and his cock throbs hot and heavy in his palm. When his hips buck forward against his fist and Goody’s side, it catches him off guard. “Oh.”_

_Goody laughs. Goody laughs all the time but this is a laugh Billy hasn’t heard yet, joyful but smoky and rich. “Yeah, that’s it.” He rubs his thumb up and down the veins inside Billy’s wrist and inner arm. “I was with you, now you’re with me. My turn to see. I wanna see, Billy Rocks. I want to know what it’ll be like when I get you inside me.”_

_Billy’s lost. He barely manages to keep his eyes open as he comes, rocking hard into his tight grip, thighs and hips and belly pressed up against Goody’s side. He gives up on holding his head up and lets it crash onto Goody’s lifted knee, grabbing onto his narrow hips for grounding. It doesn’t really work but it keeps him from flying off the bed and into the void._

_When he can breathe again, Goody tugs at him until they resettle on their backs next to each other. The whole process takes maybe ten seconds but it feels like a year before he finally sprawls, still half dressed in cum-sticky boxers and Levis, on his back in his bed. Another year seems to pass before he can turn his head to face Goody on the pillow. He’s still smiling but this one is much smaller and much softer. It’s accompanied by a knuckle brushing gently over his cheek._

_“Fuck. You’re a goddamn vision, mon vainqueur.”_

_Billy laughs because people have given him compliments before, told him they liked what they saw by calling him things like hot and beautiful and sexy but Goody had a way of putting things that was novel and untouched._

_“You can see me.”_

_Goody’s smile fades as he nods. “When you let me. I want to.” He presses their foreheads together. “I will.”_

_His hands are gross with lube and sweat and come but he tangles them with Goody’s anyway. He doesn’t want to let go of this before he has to._

_“Me too.”_

_Goody’s brow wrinkles against his as his grin returns. Billy kisses him then with their fingers laced and his clothes between them. They could figure the rest out from here._

_They can. They will._

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> 
> 
>   * [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cabinet_of_Dr._Caligari) is silent film from German that came out in the 1919/1920 depending on who you ask. It is widely considered to be the first true horror film. Tim Burton stole his **entire asthetic** from this film but more importantly, its about a somnabulist(sleepwalker) that Caligari kept locked up and under his control at all times and who ended up running amok. If you dont have time to [watch the whole thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuocVLKdSqQ)(which you REALLY SHOULD), I suggest watching the Rob Zombie [Living Dead Girl music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsMPOfblfg) as it is a truncated, shot-for-shot remake with a Rob Zombie 90s horror twist and female somnobulist instead of male. It is the only film I ever saw where I brought it home and made every member watch it from begining to end. It's brilliant and, I think, fitting for any metaphor involving a loss of agency - good or bad.
>   * DADT was put into place by Democrat Bill Clinton in the early 90s but gay service members continued to serve. It destroyed lives. It killed people. Goody makes light to cope but don't pretend for a second that it was anything but an ugly nightmare.
>   * Exit pursued by a bear is, of course, a famous direction from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. Hilariously? They're pretty sure the bear at the Globe was a real bear and a polar bear and a BABY ONE. So it would've been played for laughs as a baby polar bear chased them off stage to die. Pretty funny in context. And then horrific because Polar Bears eat humans. They do, yall. They'll eat you.
>   * Yes, Goody took Billy camping. He's trained in survivalism and Ft. Benning actually has a HUGE campground that includes cabins, places to pitch tents, a lake, and a boy scout camp. I mean, how do you think Jin-sung found out it was a thing before Marco came into the picture? Spoiler. It wasn't Yeon-mi.
>   * LOOK AT WHAT DECOY_OCELOT MADE YOU GUYS! ALL HAIL ~~HYPNOTOAD~~ BABOU! HAIL! God arent they young and perfect? I died. I. Died. 
> 



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